Keywords
Summary

Keywords

Customs union — Customs territory of the Community — Gibraltar — Not included — Consequence — Inapplicability of the Treaty provisions and secondary legislation on free movements of goods — Damage to the consistency of other Community policies — Not relevant — (Arts 94 EC and 95 EC; 1972 Act of Accession)

Summary

The exclusion of Gibraltar from the customs territory of the Community by virtue of the Act of Accession of the Kingdom of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland implies that neither the Treaty rules on free movement of goods nor the rules of secondary Community legislation intended, as regards free circulation of goods, to ensure approximation of the laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States pursuant to Articles 94 EC and 95 EC are applicable to it.

That interpretation is not called into question by the rules applicable to Ceuta and Melilla, which contain an express provision that goods originating in those territories are exempt from customs duties following their release into free circulation in the customs territory of the Community. Rather, those rules confirm the soundness of that interpretation, to the effect that exclusion from the customs territory of the Community entails the inapplicability of the Treaty provisions and secondary legislation on trade in goods, unless otherwise expressly provided.

Of course, failure to apply the directives adopted under Articles 94 EC or 95 EC to Gibraltar may endanger the consistency of other Community policies, such as environmental protection, where the objectives of those policies are pursued as an ancillary aim by those directives. However, that fact cannot lead to the extension of the territorial scope of those directives beyond the limits imposed by the Treaty and by the Act of Accession of Denmark, Ireland and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

see paras 59-60, 63